


Those Human Superpowers

by HeronS



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Culture, Cultural Differences, Friendship, smugglers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-13 23:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9146065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeronS/pseuds/HeronS
Summary: Or: Five Times Spock wished he was more human, and one time he definitely didn’t.They might be weak, slow, imprecise, emotionally compromised, and with little sense of either time or direction, but there are times when Spock wishes he had inherited some of those human superpowers.A 5+1 character/culture exploration story, wrapped inside a smuggler-hunt adventure.





	1. Reading Body Language

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s note: Spock’s various capabilities are often used as Deus Ex Machina plot solutions. He is three (or five) times as strong as a human. He has telepathy. He has an eidetic memory, absolute time sense, inner eyelids… But humans have a lot of really cool skills too, that we often don’t think about because we take them for granted.

 

“How do you have enough data to form that conclusion?” Spock asks, eyes narrowing slightly.

Jim glances at him, thoughts still on the chess board in front of him.

“Huh? About Hernandez and Scotty? Well, it’s obvious.”

The Vulcan just looks at him, and Jim runs a hand through his hair, trying to find the right words.

“It’s… just look at the way they’re not looking at each other. They’re both embarrassed about the argument they had, they know the other is embarrassed too. Now they’re trying to figure out what to do about it. Scotty’s still a bit angry, Hernandez feels a bit guilty. Even so, I bet Scotty’s going to apologize first.”

The Vulcan looks quickly at the two men at the other end of the rec room, glance furtive as if he is doing something inappropriate. Jim thinks he looks a bit lost.

“What can you tell, Spock?” He coaxes.

“They are standing in two different cliques of people. Approximately four meters, eleven centimeters from each other.” (Jim hides a smile. He never gets tired of that precision.) “I have not observed them exchanging words. They do tense their shoulder muscles more frequently than usual, which is usually indicative of some distress.”

Jim nods encouragingly, but as far as the two humans’ emotions go, Spock is not able to conclude anything more about the source of that distress. Darting another glance, he ventures:

“Mr. Scott was scheduled to do crew evaluations today, but from the creases on his elbows and knees, I surmise he spent at least an hour crawling in the maintenance shafts instead. Junctions 255-257.”

Jim raises his eyebrows. Spock is grateful that he at least has no trouble interpreting _that_ communicative signal, and promptly explains:

“There are some insulation threads adhering to Mr. Scott’s left shoe. Insulation work is currently going on in that area.”

“Pretty impressive, Sherlock. But not really the kind of observations I was fishing for.”

“I do not know, Captain.” There are few things he dislikes more than saying that. ”I can gather no data from which to draw conclusions about their interpersonal relationships, certainly not in the three point four minutes we have been in this room.”

He cannot help but feel a (shameful and hastily suppressed) twinge of irritation. Even worse, he finds that the captain is studying him when he looks back.

“You are inferring their emotions and estimating their future actions from their body language and facial expressions,” Spock notes, telling himself that there is nothing wrong with doing this. For a human.

“Yeah.” The captain smiled at him. “And if I had to take a guess, I can tell from yours that you find this a bit frustrating.”

Spock knows that he has stiffened involuntarily, but he is certain the physical reaction is very slight and that it would not have been noticed, and criticized, by his teachers. Nonetheless Jim immediately reacts:

“Spock… I’m sorry. I know it’s impolite in Vulcan culture to look for emotions in others. I just can’t turn it off, any more than you can turn off that time sense of yours.”

“I did not realize my controls were weak enough to subject you to my failure of control.”

“I don’t feel subjected or inconvenienced by anything. But the more I get to know you, the easier it is for me to read you. And I plan to keep getting to know you better, so you might just have to find a way to live with that. If it helps, I think most of the junior officers find you totally impossible to read.”

Spock shook his head, “Your metaphorical use of ‘read’ seems apt. Once the skill is acquired, it is impossible to not utilize and requires no exertion. Before the skill is learnt, however, attempting it entails a great deal of cognitive investment.”

“Yeah. Bones giving you a hard time?”

“The doctor is of the opinion that I should have predicted Ensign Turner’s emotional collapse and decreased her work load beforehand.”

Jim let out a breath slowly, hand hovering over his bishop. “I think ‘should’ is a bit harsh. You’re her commanding officer, not her parent or partner. She should have talked to someone. In fact we’ve tried our best to drill it into every cadet that they _have_ _to_ talk to someone when they start feeling panicked. And she’s already back on duty, all she really needed was some time off. What her landing party found on that moon… We’ll all feel better when we find those smugglers and deliver them to a starbase courthouse.”

Jim pulls his hand back slowly from the chess board, seeming more to sense Spock’s trap, (eight moves ahead), rather than compute it.

“But yeah, the more you can see those kinds of subconscious signals that humans send out, the better you’ll be at commanding them.” His gaze lifts to Spock’s, and for all that Spock knows that the human is officially mind-blind, a psi-null with no telepathic ability, Spock somehow feels a wave of calm certainty being projected at him. The phenomenon is as vexing as it is… fascinating.

“And you’re getting better at it all the time.”

“If so, it is very marginal and at a deplorable pace.”

Jim’s hand closes on the bishop, moves it up a level. There is probably a trap there somewhere, but what the hell. He leans back, considering his words.

He could tell his First that even by human standards, he isn’t actually that bad at intuiting human needs and emotions – maybe slightly below average. But _slightly below average_ will never be enough for Spock, not with one of his junior officers in distress, and him possibly having been in a position to prevent it.

“Look, yes, you’re not particularly good at this Spock. It’s one of your weak areas. And you have a particular dislike of being bad at things and having to struggle with them. Believe me, I sympathize. But aren’t there some ancient Vulcan maxims about that being character building?”

Spock almost sighs. “Indeed. A great many maxims.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment below. 
> 
> What did you think about the story? What are some other human "superpowers" that Spock might be surprised by?
> 
> (Also, a special shout out to WeirdLittleStories - I hope you're feeling better!)


	2. Intuition

The computer finally finishes its calculations, and Spock looks at the readout with a mix of admiration (acceptable), frustration (not acceptable; must be examined during meditation) and pride in his student (acceptable – within reasonable limits). Behind him the bridge crew waits with varying levels of anticipation, from the calm certainty of the captain to the nervous fidgeting of Chekov. As he turns towards the others, Spock notes that the ensign’s rate of breath is slightly elevated.

“The computer has finished its regression model of all the trajectory variables, Sir.”

“And did Mr. Chekov lead us on a wild goose chase?”

“No Sir, he did not.” Chekov grins broadly and Sulu claps him on the shoulder. “With a few minor course adjustments, we are indeed right on the trail of the alleged smuggler.”

The humans smile, their easy rapport travelling with lightning speed across the bridge, amplifying and strengthening their collective identity. Or so Spock assumes – while the captain praises his cautious attempts to learn, the half-Vulcan is still vary of the pitfalls of emotional group-think and its threat to individual objectivity.

“Huh. So in other words, Chekov was right and you were wrong, Spock,” the doctor drawls, as usual expending energy in pointing out obvious matters. “If we’d followed your lead, we’d have lost him in that nebula.”

Spock wonders, not for the first time, how McCoy manages – admittedly with a narrow margin – to stay on top of the paper work and research reports in Medical, given how much time he spends lounging around on the bridge. However, the human is not wrong.

“Indeed, Doctor. If we had followed my initial recommendation, we would have used a logical, approach, and waited for confirmation from the computer. I do not wish to detract from Mr. Chekov’s admirable skills as a navigator – they have been clearly proven, and not just in this case. Yet I cannot simply rely on human hunches in my own recommendations.”

The young human has stopped smiling. Spock wonders if his carefully chosen words – picked to try to avoid a negative effect on morale – were insufficient. He even added that _admirable_ : an unnecessary word, very inappropriate according to his upbringing. But he has learnt that, with humans, sometimes the most unnecessary words are the most necessary.

“So maybe you’d better try to pick up some intuition from us poor humans?” The doctor asks.

“Unlikely, Doctor. However, I do not need to possess a skill in order to appreciate it in my colleagues.”

He turns towards the helm. “Mr. Chekov, now that we know that we are on the right path, could you elucidate your thinking process?”

The Russian fidgets. “I don’t know Mr. Spock. I’d been staring at his warp trail for hours while we were chasing him, and he… seemed… to like to pretend to hide?” The confidence and smiles are gone now, and the young man’s head droops slightly. “I guess… it was not very scientific. Maybe just lucky.”

“Mr. Spock does not believe in luck, Mr. Chekov,” the captain says, grinning.

“Indeed. I believe that your skills as a navigator and a mathematician create synergy effects that lead you to make better decisions, Mr. Chekov. You should treasure that ability.”

Now Chekov smiles again, a bit shyly, and turns back towards the helm.

Spock walks down to stand next to the command chair.

“In this case, my biology does work against me, Captain. My mind’s structure does not lead itself to intuition.”

The captain frowns, but McCoy nods.

“Well, in a sense he’s right Jim. Hey, Chekov, what’s your score on the Linder-Paul intuition test?”

The young Russian blushes, but then mumbles. “713, Doctor.”

At his side, Sulu whistles. “713! I have 690. I was on top of my class – and you have more than 15 points on me!”

The Vulcan Science Academy questions the validity of the Linder-Paul test. It uses process-overloading visual, tactile, olfactory and auditory stimuli to test the mind’s ability to employ Bayesian Fellen-Markov chains in odd-one-out paradigms. Or, as the lieutenant who had administered the test to Spock at the Academy had put it: “how willing are you to take risky chances in your decisions – and how likely is it that those chances actually pay off?”

“And what’s your score, Spock?” The doctor persists.

“450, Doctor.”

This makes the doctor pause for a minute, considering him. “That’s actually pretty high.”

“The average is somewhere around 500?” Jim asks.

“The average for humans, yes. Typically Vulcans are around 300, if you can get them to take the test at all – they don’t like it.” McCoy leans on the railing, his voice slipping into lecture mode. “As near as we can tell, Vulcans compute a far higher percentage of the sights, sounds, smells and, well, general info, that they get. Almost every scrap of data – at least relative to humans. Humans can’t do that, so we cheat.”

“Our minds take a multitude of guesses every nanosecond. So, for example: when our gaze travels from point A to point B,” McCoy holds up his fingers as an illustration, “We don’t actually register any visual information about the space in between A and B in our brain – instead we make a guess, using memory and really advanced estimation techniques, to create a fake memory of what’s in between the two points. Vulcans do this too, all humanoids do, but not to the same extent as humans. We’re outliers compared to most other Federation species. Intuition geniuses.”

“Can’t be easy, Spock, having to constantly adapt to a bunch of geniuses,” Jim says, smiling. Spock recognizes the tone and the smile with a remarkable ease that he only otherwise associates with his near instinctual reading of his mother. His captain is teasing him. And he is expecting a response.

“Indeed,” he replies, in a carefully chosen, very dry tone, and is gratified when the expected response comes from the humans – laughter. Spock mentally labels it as belonging to the subtype “affectionate”, and files the stimulus and response pairing away for future reference.

It’s only when the doctor has left and the crew is deeply focused on rigging the ship for silent running in their hunt for the smuggler, when Spock quietly turns to his friend.

“May I ask, Captain, what your score on the Linder-Paul test was at the Academy?”

Jim’s lips twitch.

“Never took it.” He signs the final fuel report with a flourish and hands it over to the patiently waiting yeoman. “I happen to think the Vulcan Science Academy is right. You can’t measure intuition, not like that. It’ll reveal itself out here in the black, as the brain is pitted against obstacle after obstacle. And it’s certainly not a static ability – sure, our brain structures pose limits on us, but in the end, intuition is really about courage and self-confidence. No matter what your mind tells you is the right answer, the true skill is daring to believe in it.”

Spock does not, of course, say:  _that’s a very easy thing to say when it comes naturally to you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this chapter - please consider leaving a comment below. It's also totally fine to disagree with me strongly about what would constitute human superpowers, and suggest new ones! :)


	3. Metaphorical Thinking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ey’all did come only a little high,” the earnest human says. Spock stares at him blankly for a second before turning pointedly to Uhura, who is nodding thoughtfully, an excited glint in her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: If you don’t like language and linguistics, this chapter might be a little too dry for you… I like it when our super qualified Starfleet personnel get to do some smart research talk and I figure Uhura likes teaching linguistics and Spock likes to learn. Hopefully so do you. :)

“Ey’all did come only a little high,” the earnest human says. Spock stares at him blankly for a second before turning pointedly to Uhura, who is nodding thoughtfully, an excited glint in her eyes.

“But the time lower than the highest time, ey’all came… sorry, ey’all all  _did come_  two bounces as high?” She says in what is clearly standard, but indecipherable just the same.

“Sweet!”

“Sweet!” she echoes. “Sugar, where ey’all did be?”                           

“Stonewards. Y’all do follow.” Their informer turns and heads off with purposeful strides, his long colorful braids almost sweeping the dusty floor of the basin.

They follow, Uhura taking the lead. Spock considers taking out his tricorder, but there is little he can do with it at the moment – the human settlement is, seemingly willingly, stuck with 22nd century technology, and the smugglers they are hunting are no longer present. Spock's assessment is that they regularly use this moon to resupply, and that they have a hidden lair somewhere in these mountains. If the Starfleet officers can find it, it might give them some clues to the smugglers' true base of operations.

It is, strategically, an excellent choice. The settlers aren't hostile to strangers, but severely uninterested in contact, which works to the smugglers advantage.

As a result of the limited contact, the uniformization of phonemes, dialect variation leveling and drastic slowing of language change that has occurred to most versions of Standard has not occurred here. The local dialect is… strange.

“It’s not really strange, Sir.” Uhura says. She somehow manages to input data on her pad while keeping up with their long-legged guide on the narrow mountain path, an impressive feat for a human. “Their sound system hasn’t changed a lot since they settled here a century and a half ago, actually. The less contact a language community has with other languages, the slower language change proceeds: phonetical and grammatical language variation in an area correlates with the speed of language change.”

Spock ponders this. “But here we have a lack of contact, and yet a high speed of language change.”

“Ah, but only a high speed of a particular kind of language change, Commander. They clearly have a high turnover in the vocabulary, but a low change when it comes to phonemes. That makes sense: there are more word replacements when new situations are encountered – and here they’ve had to adjust to a whole new climate!”

Spock nods, keeping a wary eye on the lieutenant’s foot falls, in case he needs to steady her on the rocky path.

“Is the universal translator up yet, Lieutenant?” He asks, hoping.

She shakes her head. “No, and I’m not prioritizing fixing it at the moment, not with the grammar and phoneme inventory so similar to Standard. It’s more or less only a matter of metaphors.”

“Indeed. But how are you interpreting the metaphors?”

“Human languages are inherently metaphorical, Sir. Very little is straight information, most is couched in various culturally grounded metaphors.”

“I have stored and analyzed all of the metaphors utilized by my mother during my childhood, Lieutenant. Unfortunately, I have no recollection of most of the metaphors that the settlers prefer to use. But you have clearly encountered them before?”

Uhura shakes her head, a happy grin on her face “Nope! Never heard them before. Or, never heard them higher, as they would say… It’s all systematic, Mr. Spock, a system of cognitive metaphors.”

“A most cumbersome communicative system.”

“That’s something I hear from Vulcan linguists a lot. Oh, you have metaphorical thinking in modern Vulcan as well, though not as much. Nothing like human languages. There’s an interesting paper by K’Inna about that, actually. I will send it to you when we get back… The thing is, if you don’t understand the local base metaphors, you’re in a lot of trouble. But as soon as you… well, as soon as a  _human_  understands a base metaphor, they can build on that and decipher an infinite amount of similar metaphors without having to commit them to memory.”

Spock nods, thoughtfully. “Human metaphors are not so much a matter of lexicon, as a matter of a cognitive operation, then.”

“Yes! Take time, for instance. In Standard, we have a base metaphor that is ‘the future is forward, and the past is backwards’. That’s why we say  _I’m looking forward to the next shore leave_ or  _I have left that part of my life behind me._  And that’s why, if I come up with a brand new metaphorical way of expressing something, another human will just, well, compute it and hopefully get it.”

She thinks for a moment. “What about this:  _That photo album didn’t just take me back, it was like a bungee jump rope.”_

She gives him an expectant glance over her shoulder and he concentrates. He does know the sport equipment in question quite well, since he insisted on accompanying the captain when he tried it out on New Luna Beta.

“The photo album in question made the speaker remember,” he ventures, he has that meaning stored for  _take me back._  “And since the speaker… presumably enjoys bungee jumping, it was a pleasant recollection,” he finishes uncertainly, but is met with a brief shake of dark curls.

“I’m afraid not, Sir. Now, a human might be puzzled by what I just said at first, because they’ve probably never heard it before. But in a second or so their minds will have started searching for the metaphor in the same way that you instinctually would start to solve a math problem before you. I’m not sure you could stop your mind from solving a math problem, and I’m sure no one could stop me from instinctually try to interpret metaphors. So, it would go something like this: the bungee jump rope pulls you back up, they key here being  _back_ , and does so very forcefully and suddenly. And back is connected to the past, I know that from the base metaphor. So the best guess a human would make about the meaning, would be something like  _The photo album made be remember the past very suddenly and vividly_.”

They’ve come up the old goat trail to a thin rope bridge and their guide motions for them to wait while he checks it out. Uhura exchanges a few nearly indecipherable comments with him, and then sinks down on her haunches, eyes on her pad, one hand fiddling with the recording settings of the tricorder. Spock remains standing. There is no reason to think the smugglers are left, but his hearing is better than the others’, and it is always good to keep an eye on the surroundings. He sorts through the information the lieutenant has given him in his head.

“The natives use a different base metaphor for time.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“While time in standard is often described as being on a horizontal axis in relation to a humanoid body, the present being forward of that body and the past behind the body, their time metaphor rests on a vertical axis. The future is downwards, the past is upwards. Knowing this you can then understand various descriptions of time events, even if you have never heard them before.”

“Mm… and it’s mostly instinctual.” She looks up, eyes sparkling in a way that calls to him. This is not his field, but he recognizes intellectual fascination when he sees it. “And do you know the best part?”

“I suspect you are about to inform me.”

“The best part is when metaphors are mixed! Humans don’t only instinctually compute a single metaphor, we can blend them together. Do you remember President Correra’s State of the Federation speech that was broadcast in the rec room last week? At one point she said  _as we look back at those who have gone before us, we must honor their memory and preserve their legacy for our descendants._ That’s three separate base metaphors for time! All thrown together! Back is earlier in time; before us, that is in front of us, is earlier in time; and downwards is later in time, you get that in the  _descend_ , going down, part in  _descendants_ …”

“I found the speech confusing,” Spock admits. “I had intended to ask you about it. But you are saying that the other humans had no trouble parsing the mixed metaphors?”

“If they did, it was such a minor cognitive blip that they forgot a minute later. Well, except for me, I remembered. love metaphors. There’s such…” she searches for a word, “Beauty. There’s such beauty in them.” She turns a  _warm_  smile at him – Spock notes that warmth indicates friendship and affection, as cold indicates hostility, but the entire temperature scale is not applicable in the metaphorical use. The lieutenant is  _warm_ in her behavior, but not  _hot_.

For Spock, most metaphors he hears on the  _Enterprise_ can simply be looked up, courtesy of his eidetic memory. He realizes that he has indeed learnt to perform the cognitive operations that the lieutenant describes. But for him, this is a relatively slow process, certainly nothing like the instinctual understanding that his human colleagues seem to have.

They are interrupted by a shout up ahead. It’s Mr. Sulu, his short hair already bedecked by the locals in an impromptu wig.

“Hey Arri! We’all do lower. Our captain did find a transmitter,” he shouts.

Their guide, Arri, raises a hand in response – and turns to Uhura who turns to him.

Spock blinks.

“We either have to proceed to a lower altitude… or lower indicates later in time and we should postpone our search.”

Uhura smiles and rests a quick hand on his arm, a sign of approval. He gestures for her to precede him down the trail, as she enthusiastically picks up where she left off.

“Well done, Sir! Now, the settlers don’t only have the ‘future time is downwards’ base metaphor, they also have a cyclic time metaphor, and they often mix the two. Let me give you a few examples, you’ll pick it up in no time…”

 _No time_  in Standard never means no time. He knows that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note Thanks for reading! You got all the way to the end without being scared off by the linguistics! For more on cognitive metaphor theory, google “cognitive metaphors” or “metaphor blending theory” (this futuristic dialect also has a little bit of grammatical change in the verbs - did you see it? It now followa gaelic-type system, where tense is put on the auxiliary verb (do) and not the following main verb). 
> 
> If you hated this chapter, the next one will also be a bit language related, but far far lighter. And it'll have a bit of plot as the crew closes in on the smugglers. :)
> 
> I love reviews, and accept anonymous ones, so please consider leaving a word or two. Or, y'know, more. Because "a word or two" in English never means just a single solitary word, you know that much. :)


	4. Cacophony Navigation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I understand that humans can choose to focus on a single instrument in an orchestra?” Spock asks, and chides himself for the tinge of envy in his voice.

Spock is waiting outside a local entertainment establishment. It is illogical to pass judgments on the aesthetics of other cultures, so Spock decides to limit himself to refer to the place as “colorful” when he contacts the captain.

Most of Haven is colorful.

Haven is a privately owned space station right on the lawless edge of the former Orion Empire, and the _Enterprise’s_ search for the smugglers has taken her to this vicinity. The ship itself cannot approach – she would cause chaos. The swarm of small ships, anchored wherever there is room on the long spider arms of the station, would scatter and some might panic enough to try to get off a shot at the Feds.

The captain, Spock, Mr. Chekov, and the small but deadly security officer Vilya, have therefore flown in incognito in a hastily repainted Galileo, and are presently spread around the station, interviewing locals about a yellow, three-hold Membra-class freighter that might or might not (depending on the bribe) have come to the station just a few days ago.

A ship of that description is not visible off the station, but that means little here. The rumor is that a vessel can have a new color, shape and transponder within 40 minutes of its arrival on Haven…

Spock has tracked a black market ship refitter, Drangag, to this establishment, and promptly summons his superior. The human arrives atop one of the station’s ever-present hoverboards, which he expertly guides to the ground. Jim smiles, claps Spock on the shoulder, and is about to step up to the doors when he senses Spock’s hesitation.

“What’s the matter?” he shouts, the noise coming out of the bar almost overwhelming the sound waves. It will be even louder inside.

“Nothing of importance, Sir. It is merely… loud.”

“Right.” He glances at Spock’s ears and his lips twitch. “Wait out here, and I’ll go in and talk to him.”

“No, Sir.”

“I’ll be fine, Mr. Spock, no reason for you to be in pain. I give him the credit chip, he gives me the information. It’ll be over in two minutes, at the most.”

“Respectfully, no. Sir.”

They both know that Kirk could make it an order. And that Spock could start quoting regulations. And they both know that regulations or no regulations, there is no way that the half-Vulcan is going to let his danger-prone captain go alone into an unknown situation. There is a brief non-vocal negotiation before Kirk gives in.

“Alright, but if you bust your eardrums because of this, you don’t get to argue with whatever McCoy’s does to you.”

“I shall suffer in silence, Sir.” Spock responds drily.

Kirk smiles, spins on his heel and goes up to the doors. A small discrete monetary transaction takes place between the captain and the guard, and then Spock locks his mental controls in place and they enter.

The cacophony bursts out at them, like a living, tearing monster. It averages around 112 decibels, and Spock can register nothing but _noise_. Most is generated by two groups of musicians – and Spock is using that term very loosely – on two different stages. They seem to be competing. Spock can see drums, Antari horns and even a Martian trumpet, though he does not understand how the latter can be heard over the constant noise of the bands and the crowd. Two feathered dancers gyrate above them doing acrobatic tricks – Spock notes that they, and the bartenders, are the only ones wise enough to have some noise protection over their ears.

There is no time for that, and it would also make them stand out in the crowd, since none of the other patrons wear them.

Spock subsumes the pain under other sensory perceptions. It is… bearable. He focuses instead on the captain, and marvels at the ease with which he moves through the club, head bobbing to what the Tellarite drummer mistakenly assumes is an even beat.

Jim reaches back, grabs Spock’s lower right arm in his left hand and together they move through the densely packed room. Then Jim gives two quick squeezes – he has spotted their target.

The transaction does not take two minutes.

Their informer is a little too useful – he helpfully points out one of the smugglers who happens to be in the club, and as the latter detects the two Starfleet officers bearing down on him, he bolts. Or possibly slithers is a better word – the room is packed, and Spock finally resorts to just pushing people aside, clearing a way for the captain behind him. Even so, they are a few dozen meters behind the fleeing human, and he manages to jump into an autocab before they can reach him.

“Follow that cab!” Kirk shouts at another one of the anti-grav cabs, and they throw themselves inside. He turns to Spock, adrenaline lighting up his eyes. “I’ve always wanted to say that.”

A few minutes later they have organized the other _Enterprise_ personnel in pursuit. It’s pretty clear that this particular smuggler won’t lead them back to his ship, but they manage to tap into a warning call that he makes, which gives them a general idea of where the recipient of the call is. Spock breaks into the club surveillance system and the dock security cameras. He ties them in with their shuttle computer to search for where the human has been before, and 7.6 minutes later he has a positive match for a docking bay.

Chekov and Vilya undock the Galileo shuttle, and head toward docking bay 81. Spock and Kirk do the same, but in their autocab inside the station.

There are a few minutes of calm before the storm, and even as he double-checks his phaser, Spock thinks about what he witnessed at the club.

“I found your conversation with the informer quite interesting, Captain.”

“I wouldn’t have thought that you’d be able to hear a single word, Spock. Hey, how are your ears? That was at least ten decibels too loud for you, it must have hurt.”

“My ears are fully functional, Sir. However, it was not the amplitude of the sound waves that I found interesting, but your ability to disregard them and focus on a single voice and carry on a conversation despite the cacophony around you. I have seen my mother do similar things, but I have never understood how it is accomplished.”

Kirk, master at resting between bouts of activity, leans back on the autocab seat, lips pursed in thought. “Right. I don’t know, I’m afraid. It’s just instinctual. It’s actually hard for me to focus on all sounds in a room at the same time. I mean, I can do it, but it’s a little unnerving to do it for more than around… ten seconds. The most natural thing is to just block out everything but the thing I want to listen to.”

“I understand that humans can choose to focus on a single instrument in an orchestra?” Spock asks, and chides himself for the tinge of envy in his voice.

“Yeah… I guess it’s a pretty useful skill, now that I think about it. Singling out a single source of sound… You don’t have it, not even a bit from your mother?”

“Vulcans have it, but to a significantly lower extent than humans. I have always wondered what it would be like…”

“We could mind meld, and you’d find out.”

Spock makes himself shake his head. “Sir, mind melds should not be undertaken lightly or for spurious reasons.”

Kirk smiles and, after a look at his friend, drops the subject. He knows that Spock is wavering, but will not push him. Hopefully the half-Vulcan will only need to mull the proposal over for a few weeks.

Instead, he rises, and Spock follows suit. They’re nearly at the station’s dock, and from one second to the next they become entirely focused at what lies behind the dock’s tall gates.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Already at the fourth chapter! Two more to go. 
> 
> What did you think? Was it a superpower you were aware that most neurotypical humans have? It’s also one that humans with ADHD and other atypical neurological variations sometimes lack, which makes noisy environments really difficult for them.
> 
> You can leave a comment, anonymously or not, in the box below. See you in the next chapter!


	5. Eating Poison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a characteristic act of unthinking bravado, the captain brings the seed to his mouth before Spock catches his hand.
> 
> "Jim! They are poisonous!"

They make it aboard the freighter just as she casts off, and the next few hours are quite stimulating.

The ship plunges out in the black, and at first the smugglers are unaware that they have Starfleet stowaways.

Once they take the bridge, the "how" of the smugglers' operation unfolds itself fairly quickly to Spock's carefully crafted information collation algorithms. Small bases on many small planets and moons. Crooked officials on a dozen worlds. Terror – underscored by beatings, mutilation, death – for those who might reveal something.

Ensigns Chekov and Vilya are now slowly but surely, millimeter by millimeter, lasering through the diften-reinforced cargo hold where the last smugglers are hiding. At current cutting speed, they will be through in 25.1 minutes, at which point some necessary but regrettable violence will no doubt ensue. The  _Enterprise_  should be arriving an hour after that, and then they will all need to depart this system post haste.

Meanwhile, Spock is taking inventory of the vault next to the cargo hold, and ponders the "why" of the smugglers' chosen life. He comes from a world (worlds) where no one starves, where synthesizers and fabricators have created a true post-scarcity society.

And the Federation welcomes immigration.

So why? Why this? Why this reign of terror, in pursuit of wealth?

"So do we know why they did this?" the captain asks, coming up to stand next to Spock. "What's in these crates that these people think is worth killing for?"

When Spock first opened the crate, he saw layers of hard insta-foam, the kind that dissipates into thin air when a vacuum seal is broken. Now the foam is gone, leaving a large pile of small brown objects at the bottom of the box.

"I do not understand the value of this organic substance, Captain. It has the appearance of a Terran nut, but is in fact a seed. Our botanical database identifies it as Prunus Dulcis Amara."

Jim picks up one of the seeds, turns it over. It looks like small stone, or a piece of tree bark.

"Prunus…" the captain frowns, and then his eyes widen. "My God, Spock. Almonds! No wonder they were making millions of credits off this stuff."

In a characteristic act of unthinking bravado, the captain brings the seed to his mouth before Spock catches his hand.

"Jim! They are poisonous!"

Jim stills. "They poisoned the almonds? Why would they do that?"

"No. The almonds are naturally poisonous to most humanoids. They contain cyanide."

"Let me see that tricorder." Jim grabs it, still keeping a tight grip on the almond.

Spock eyes it warily.

After a minute, the human laughs and hands back the tricorder. "Alright – sure. They're slightly poisonous. But I'd have to eat enormous quantities to suffer any ill effect. They should taste a bit strange, sure. And that bitterness will be my body reacting to the trace amounts of cyanide. But it's fine."

At Spock's look he narrows his eyes. "Look, this is a real almond, Spock. A real one. They've been extinct ever since the Eugenics wars. Unless you can convince me that four or five of these are truly dangerous, I'm eating this."

He plops the seed in his mouth, bites down, and then makes a face. Spock observes him carefully, but even though the seed is clearly bitter, the captain continues chewing, and displays an almost reverent look on his face.

"You've got to try this, Spock. This is nothing like what we get in the replicators. This is… the taste… all the layers…"

Spock shakes his head, "I have no interest, or capability, in eating a poisonous seeds, Jim. Like most," he makes an artful pause, which does not contain the word  _sane_ , "species, Vulcan taste buds are designed to make it impossible to ingest poison. Humans are an exception to this rule. I do not understand how you can find that palatable."

"It's not good, per se," Jim muses. "But it's tasty! It's bitter, but there are so many nuances to the bitterness. It's like chilli."

"Another plant which contains poisonous elements."

"Sure, but it's so good, Spock! Hey, if they've managed to find and grow extinct Earth almonds, I can't wait to see what's in the next crate. Open it up!"

Spock does so, and this time Jim does not need to ask what the plant is. This crate has a stasis field, and once this is removed Jim buries his face in green foliage.

"Basil… That's basil!" he picks off a leaf.

"But this one is much sweeter than the re-engineered ones we have onboard. Sulu will go nuts over this, Spock!"

At Spock's raised eyebrow, and Jim, the son and grandson of Iowa farmers, explains.

"True Terran basil was also made extinct in the Eugenics Wars. Apart from the genetic experimentations that they did on humans, the big gene-companies also tried to corner the market on food – they'd spread their own seeds, which then crowded out the natural varieties and killed them off. The engineered plants were sterile – you'd need to buy more seed from the companies to keep growing stuff. And then most of the labs were destroyed during the wars, and we lost thousands of plant species for ever… Just smell that, Spock!"

After a tricorder sweep, Spock obligingly smells the small bushes. The captain looks so enthusiastic that it is difficult for Spock to admit that: "I regret that I smell very little, Jim."

The human's face falls. "Right... Dammit, I keep forgetting how different your senses are." Jim seems bothered by this, as if Spock is missing something important. He looks around the room and then his face lights up.

"Go and check on Chekov and Vilya. I found just the thing over in that corner. Oh, and I'll key up your DNA profile from your med journal, if that's alright?" He gestures at a pad.

Spock raises an eyebrow. "As you know, I have granted you full access to all my files, Jim."

"Well, it's polite to ask. Now go check on our ensigns."

Spock obeys, intrigued.

As he has calculated, the ensigns have made a 5.9 cm hole in the door, and will be busy for another 18.2 minutes. They seem tense, but after some consideration, Spock decides that this is only made worse by his presence, and he returns to the vault.

Jim has opened a few more crates, and started up what looks like a gene resequencer in a corner. The machine whirs busily, and, just as Spock steps back in the room, it plops out a few blue pills.

"Here you go," Jim says, giving him one. "We used to do this all the time at the Academy in the biophys labs. I took your DNA profile as input, mine as output. It won't be a perfect match, but it should give you a rough idea of what this stuff tastes like to a human."

Spock is familiar with the technique, of course, though it has never occurred to him to use it for entertainment purposes.

But… surely this could be classified as a kind of explorative science? An important insight into the factors that drive demand and supply on the black market?

…Yes. Acceptable.

He lets the pill dissolve on his tongue. There is a vague tingly feeling. After a few moments he takes the proffered basil leaves and hesitantly puts it on his tongue as well.

Suddenly his frame tenses and he inhales once, quickly. Jim grabs him by the arm, mischievous affection turned to alarm, but the half-Vulcan makes an abortive gesture.

"No! No… I am… functional. It is just… I had no idea. Jim, it tastes of..." he stops himself because there is nothing that he has ever tasted that feels like this. Humans have over 5000 receptors in their tongues, Vulcans have a fifth of that number. It is as if he suddenly goes from a 1k pixel resolution to a 2k resolution on a screen – suddenly, a fuzzy world becomes clear.

Jim smiles again, but keeps a hand on his arm. "You seem fine. But that was quite some reaction. The pill should wear off in about a minute. Maybe we'd better not have you try anything else before Bones has a chance to shout at me for a while."

"Really, Captain, I am quite capable of making my own choices."

That was… fascinating. He wonders about the almonds, now.

"Oh, he'll shout at you too, don't you worry. But after that, we can make some more of these pills, and I'll introduce you to licorice."

"Licorice is a tasteless bark."

"Oh, not with these taste buds, Spock. You just wait." Jim winks at him, but then glances at his own pad, where he's been keeping a countdown.

"We'll have to hand the rest of inventory off to the  _Enterprise's_  quarter master, I'm afraid, Mr. Spock. It's almost time to dig the last of the smugglers out."

The captain's smile disappears. "And then we'll get to the real question, won't we?"

"Yes." Spock looks at the almonds. The basil. The crates. "Jim… why would they do this?"

The human turns, leans his hip on the crate and looks at the stacked boxes in the vault. Spock knows, somehow, that his thoughts are not here. They are on a little, razed community of dead bioengineers on a small moon many light-years away.

After a few moments of silence the captain speaks again.

"They're not interested in safety or security," the captain says. "They don't want full stomachs and free travel between a thousand planets without borders. They want power. And they think that for some to have power, others must be powerless.  _It is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven._ "

"...I understand," Spock says.

Jim smiles slightly, and this time Spock is unable to classify the emotion behind it.

"No, my friend. I don't think you do. And I hope you never will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Thanks for reading - and thanks for all the comments on the previous chapters! Feel free to let me know what you think in the comment box below. Personally I hate licorice, but Spock is a far more adventurous individual than me.


	6. The Dark Side of Empathy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Spock… I wanted to…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, and he doesn’t have to.   
> “Yes.”  
> “You don’t… understand. I would have…”  
> “No. You would not have.”  
> He takes a step closer and wills his words, his faith in this man, towards the other. There is no telepathy involved, but even so there is something… a connection. 
> 
> ...Trust me. Believe in my faith in you, even if you don’t believe in yourself...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter... And now we tie the story and the themes together... Remember McCoys being mentioned in the first chapter?

**Chapter 6: The dark side of empathy**

**-o0o-**

* * *

The doctor keeps it together until the door of his office closes behind them. Then he grabs the terminal screen from the desk and throws it at the wall.

Traditional plastiglass-fronted photograph frames fall and shatter, and a small part of Spock's mind takes note of where the shards fall. The majority of his attention is fully directed at the human, however.

Bones leans heavily against the desk, and for a moment the small room is filled with his labored breathing. When it doesn't seem to let up, Spock takes a step forward and hesitantly places a hand on the human's shoulder.

Bones throws it off, but at least he whirls around while doing so and Spock can see his face. He is crying, and his fists are clenched tight. They look at each other for twenty seven seconds, while Spock considers and discards multiple strategies for assisting his friend. He wonders if the doctor will project his anger and helplessness, and attack him, Spock, shouting about the Vulcan's lack of emotional reaction to what has just transpired. While never pleasant to endure, such a scene usually leads to the doctor being able to get rid of some bottled up anger. It is not a Vulcan way of emotional control, but it has on occasion been very effective for this human, and for that reason Spock would welcome it.

But instead Bones sinks down on the desk, half sitting, his gaze locked with Spock's. He takes a trembling breath.

"Spock… I wanted to…" He doesn't finish the sentence, and he doesn't have to.

"Yes. You did."

"You don't understand. _I would have_ …"

"No. You would not have."

Spock takes a step closer and projects his absolute faith in the truth of these words towards the other. There is no telepathy involved, but even so there is something… a connection. _Trust me. Believe in my faith in you, even if you do not believe in yourself._

Finally the doctor takes a deep breath and drops his head. He is still fighting what are clearly overwhelming negative emotions. Anger and grief, Spock thinks. And… fear? He does not understand the fear. The smugglers are caught, they are out in sickbay under heavy guard, where they are joking with each other, presenting a brave face at the prospect of decades in a Federation rehabilitation colony. So far they have shown absolutely no remorse. Instead they have been boasting.

Spock takes up a neuromedical tricorder and points it at the doctor. He receives a glare in return.

"Don't play doctor, Spock."

"In fact I have two doctorates, Doctor."

"Not the kind that counts."

"They are the kind that let me interpret a graph, however. Your empathetic response to the encounter with the smugglers are causing you neurophysiological distress of a high order."

"That empathetic response has saved a lot of life, you damn un-feeling…"

"Yes, Doctor. I am aware. It often motivates you to a high level of efficiency and skill. You have saved the captain's life, and my own, in situations where a physician with less commitment might have been given up. I do not entirely understand it, but I value this capability in you. When," he glances at the tricorder, "applied in moderation."

The discussion has caused a slight drop in the doctor's amygdala activation level, but it is still far higher than recommended.

"Yeah… moderation…" Bones takes a deep breath, glances at his liquor cabinet, but manages to override the need for a hard drink.

"God. For a while there, I really wanted to kill them… When that smuggler was joking on the biobed out there. What they did to the people on that moon, Spock. Jesus… There were body parts… A part of me is saying that a trial is too good for them."

The human takes a shuddering breath. Then another. Finally he regains enough control to snatch the tricorder out of Spock's hand and walk around the desk and collapse in his chair. He squeezes his eyes shut, tight.

"Ever since we first started hunting them, Spock, I've been seeing those poor dead people on that moon in my mind. They must have been so frightened, the last hours. Maybe they were hoping right until the end that someone would come and save them… But we were too late."

"Doctor, there was nothing we could have done to arrive there earlier."

Spock approaches, hesitantly. This is not his area of expertise, but he will try. Because he has to. Because it is his obligation, for the honor of calling this vexing and admirable human a friend…

"This part of your empathy… I submit that it is not, in fact, helping you. Not in this instance. You are not just recalling, you are in fact _reliving_ the hypothetical memories of the dead victims. Your body and mind are in distress as you recreate mental echoes of what you believe that they must have gone through. This will not help them, or yourself."

He has seen his mother go through this, and the captain. Spock lauds their dedication to their fellow sentients – but he… feels… helpless when it goes this far, when it does not bolster their convictions or gives them energy, but merely causes them emotional trauma. This particular human gift – or curse – to be so emotionally invested in the lives of others, even to the point that it evokes phantom pain, is one that he is gratified to not have to carry himself.

"I can't help it, Spock." The doctor says. He is tired, tired beyond reason. "You can't have… well, maybe _you_ can. I know you felt for those people, don't try to deny it. But you seem to be able to stop there. I can't. I can't stop the images. I can't stop imagining what it must have been like… I can't have one part of empathy without the other. I'm not wired that way."

Bones drags himself up to a more sitting position, puts his head in his hands and massages his forehead. "I'm going to have to operate to reattach those fingers on that smiling bastard out there… Which probably means that I should take something to calm me down so I don't accidentally cut off his hand… or some other body part." He takes a deep breath. "But I can't operate with those kinds of drugs in my system, so no…"

He clenches his hands into fists. "I just need a few minutes, Spock."

When the half-Vulcan neither speaks nor stirs, the doctor eventually looks up. Spock is standing by the desk, studying him. When their gazes meet, Spock's eye first darts away, but then returns. It takes a few seconds before the half-Vulcan speaks in soft tones.

"Doctor… Will you let me help?"

There's another minute of silence before Bones breathes, "Please."

He drops back in his chair, head cradled by the head rest. He turns his face to the right, away from Spock and shortly after he feels cold fingers on his face and then tendrils of soft serenity gently waft into his mind.

"Forget."

-o0o-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end. This fic grew a bit darker and more serious than I expected, but I hope you liked it. There's a heavy forshadowing at the end, you get geek points if you recognize to which episode.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the story – I'm always very curious about which chapter is your favorite.


End file.
